Columbia River Treaty is focus of new studies

December 16, 2008

Hydropower authorities in the United States and Canada are beginning to think about the future of the Columbia River Treaty. The 1964 treaty authorized construction of three large dams in British Columbia to protect against flooding in the province and downstream in the United States, and to boost electricity generation.

Last week in Portland, the Bonneville Power Administration briefed the Northwest Power and Conservation Council on the first phase of an international effort called the 2014/2024 Columbia River Treaty Review. This initial phase includes technical studies to establish baseline information about possible power and flood control dam operations after 2024 with and without the Treaty. While the treaty has no expiration date, either country can request that it be terminated after 2024, 60 years after its ratification, given at least 10 years advance notice — in 2014 at the earliest.

Council Chair Bill Booth said that while the Council has no statutory responsibility for the treaty, the Council does have responsibility for informing Northwest citizens about energy issues and for devising a power plan that Bonneville follows when making decisions about future sources of power and energy conservation. In revising that plan every five years, the Council accounts for dam operations throughout the Columbia River Basin, including in Canada.

“The Columbia River Treaty is complex and critically important to current and future dam operations in the Columbia River Basin,” Booth said. “The Council is ready to assist Bonneville and other parties, including Canadian entities, in thinking about the future of the treaty.”

With 2014, just six years in the future, the official treaty entities, Bonneville and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the United States and BC Hydro, the provincial utility in British Columbia, for Canada, launched the 2014/2024 review earlier this year. While the U.S. and Canadian entities were given broad discretion to implement the treaty, they are not authorized to modify or terminate it. That is the responsibility of the federal governments.

At the Council meeting today, Steve Oliver, vice president for generation asset management, said the 2014/2024 review is not intended to establish future strategic direction or policy regarding the treaty. He said no decision has been made by either the United States or Canada regarding the future of the treaty but that the studies currently under way will help inform future decision-making. The entities plan to complete the first phase of studies next spring and then host public workshops to discuss the initial findings and seek public comments to help frame the second round of studies.

The Columbia River Treaty mandated the construction and operation of three water-storage dams in British Columbia (Mica, Keenleyside, and Duncan) for the purpose of providing flood control and optimum hydropower generation in the Columbia River Basin in Canada and/or the United States. The Treaty also authorized a fourth dam (Libby Dam on the Kootenai River in Montana) for flood control and other purposes in the United States. All four dams were built.

Importantly, the Treaty considered that the value of flood control and hydropower dwarfed the value of other costs and benefits of dam operations, and so it made no explicit provision for other values such as water-flow benefits for salmon and steelhead. In 1964, salmon and steelhead had been extinct in the upper Columbia River for more than 20 years because of Grand Coulee Dam, which has no fish passage facilities for either juvenile or adult fish.

Contacts:

• , Chair, 208-660-4127
• , Information Officer, 503-222-5161